“There were a couple plays where the backs had stopped running and turned back to go to the huddle, and then saw me still coming,” he said. “I’m going to do that, and I’m going to try to strip the ball away from them. That helps my conditioning, and it helps them remember to finish off plays.”

Lions Coach Jim Schwartz, who coached Vanden Bosch in Tennessee, said that the veteran’s high pace isn’t an act.

“That’s just how he is, and his teammates know it,” he said. “Anyone who didn’t know that about him learned it by the end of his first day with us in March. It is in his DNA to go hard all of the time.”

Schwartz expects that the attitude will be contagious.

“That’s the type of thing that rubs off on the other defensive players, and on the offensive guys too,” he said. “By the end of practice, there were wide receivers blocking him down the field.”